His emergency ejection system activated, powered by independent capacitors that were somehow still functional. The cockpit section blew clear of the disintegrating armor, and Carrow was thrown free just as the fusion reactor lost containment entirely.
He hit the ground hard, the impact breaking his right arm instantly. The limb bent at an angle that made Sarhita, watching from the ridge, wince in sympathetic pain.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Where his left arm should have been, there was nothing. The explosion had caught it and vaporized it from the shoulder down. The wound was cauterized—mercy of extreme heat—but the arm was simply gone.
And across his face, from left temple to right jaw, a scar had been carved by flying debris. Deep enough that bone showed through in places, the wound smoking slightly from heat that had partially cauterized it as well.
